g, and the withdrawal of the military service bill have happened in
quick succession. The country is still waiting (April 28th) for the last
inevitable step.

II

It was about the middle of February, after my return from the munition
factories, that I received a programme from the War Office of a journey in
France, which I was to be allowed to make. I remember being at first much
dissatisfied with it. It included the names of three or four places well
known to be the centres of English supply organisation in France. But it
did not include any place in or near the actual fighting zone. To me, in
my ignorance, the places named mainly represented the great array of
finely equipped hospitals to be found everywhere in France in the rear of
our Armies; and I was inclined to say that I had no special knowledge of
hospital work, and that one could see hospitals in England, with more
leisure to feel and talk with the sufferers in them than a ten days' tour
could give. A friendly Cabinet Minister smiled when I presented this view.
"You had better accept. You will find it very different from what you
suppose. The 'back' of the Army includes everything." He was more than
right!

The conditions of travelling at the present moment, within the region
covered by the English military organisation in France, for a woman
possessing a special War Office pass, in addition to her ordinary
passport, and understood to be on business which has the good-will of the
Government, though in no sense commissioned by it, are made easy by the
courtesy and kindness of everybody concerned. From the moment of landing
on the French side, my daughter and I passed into the charge of the
military authorities. An officer accompanied us; a War Office motor took
us from place to place; and everything that could be shown us in the short
ten days of our tour was freely open to us. The trouble, indeed, that was
taken to enable me to give some of the vividness of personal seeing to
these letters is but one of many proofs, I venture to think, of that warm
natural wish in British minds that America should understand why we are
fighting this war, and how we are fighting it. As to myself, I have
written in complete freedom, affected only by the absolutely necessary
restrictions of the military censorship; and I only hope I may be able to
show something, however inadequately, of the work of men who have done a
magnificent piece of organisation, far too little realise